Training the Best

For those of you that don't know, the North Carolina Tar Heel baseball team made it all the way to the championship series of the college world series and were even one game up in the three game series before letting it all slide.

Carolina baseball has never been a powerhouse, as long as I have been a student and alum we have been a good team that just didn't have what it takes to advance deep into the playoffs. So this was really a special year; the combination of the sport I love, the school I love and a possible national title for the Heels? It just doesn't get much better.

But there was foreshadowing of the outcome. We had one of the best starting pitching rotations in the country but our defense was suspect at the most inopportune times. Throughout the playoffs there were incidents where an infield grounder was bobbled, a throw went wild, or a poor decision was made that caused runs to be scored and opportunities to end innings missed. In the lower rounds it made for excitement but as we moved up through the bracket it made me more and more nervous.

We almost lost in the round of eight to Cal State Fullerton twice (once on their way down to the losers bracket, and once on their way back to try to make it back in). I was really glad to see those California punks get sent home finally. I hate when the announcers latch onto one team as a "comeback" team and won't stop talking about it. I know they have to come up with something to talk about, but give it a rest!

So even though we won the first game of the three game championship series with some good base running in the eight inning, I was not counting my chickens yet. Sure enough, we gave up the second game with a seven run fourth inning. We were winning the game 5-0 and with our pitching that should have been enough but they managed to get some good hits in and a home run that sealed our fate. We tried hard to get back into the game but it was not to be.

Our squadron softball team is in the playoffs right now so I didn't get to see the first seven innings of the deciding third game; I had to watch the game up in the base bowling alley. It was tied at 2 in the bottom of the seventh. I would have gone home, but there was still computer based training on base that I had to finish. So I watched the game for the last three innings in my flight suit at the bowling alley.

As I had feared, the Heels cracked under the pressure. We had the bases loaded with one out in the top of the eighth and somehow we let it slip away. All we needed was one fucking sacrifice fly and we would have had the lead. All was not lost though, we still had a tie.

Then the infamous Tarheel defense reared its ugly head. With two outs and runners on first and second, a soft grounder was hit to the second baseman. A routine throw to first would get us out of the jam and somehow the second baseman managed to throw it away and the first baseman failed to catch it. Made me think of Bill Buckner. A single run scored on the play and we managed to get out of that inning without any more damage but it was enough. We couldn't produce in the top of the ninth and the game was over.

I wanted to scream and yell and throw stuff but since I was in uniform and on base I had to contain my anger. It kills me to see them lose this opportunity. They could have been the first ACC team since 1955 to win the College World Series and it would have been the first ever for North Carolina. Two of our best three pitchers have been drafted to the majors and a lot of good things have to come together to make it to the championship game. I'm sure we'll be a powerful team for some time to come, but when will our next shot at the national championship be?

Well for two glorious days, I was really having a good time flying. I started precision aerobatics or PAs for short. This is real air show stuff; split-s, immelman, half cuban eight, barrel rolls, loops, all kinds of good stuff! Then the Navy decided to screw me over once again, but I'll get back to that.

I have been looking forward to PAs ever since I found out that we do PAs in Primary. Some of my friends (mostly squids) don't like PAs, they just get through them, but I was psyched to start flipping the horizon.

The first flight was on Monday with Captain Owen, who most people love flying with. He's laid back and likes flying. He's just a generally happy guy. Our brief went pretty well, he wasn't really too interested in briefing, he wanted to go fly.

For the first flight, we did aileron rolls, barrel rolls, loops, and wingovers. Pretty benign stuff, but still fun.

An aileron roll is just like you see them do all the time in Top Gun. You jam the stick all the way to the left or right and the plane flips over. It's a good time but has not real tactical application. The T-34 rolls pretty fast, but it's not going to bounce your head off the canopy or anything. Mostly it's just fun to watch the world spin by.

The barrel roll is probably one of the most misunderstood maneuvers. Many people think that a barrel roll is an aileron roll but it's not. It helps to imagine a barrel in the sky that the plane is going to fly around. To do a barrel roll you pull up on the stick until your nose is about thirty degrees nose up and then you start to roll. You continue to roll and pull until your nose is pointed 90 degrees away from your original heading and you are completely inverted. Continue the pull and roll and you come out exactly where you started, on the same heading and airspeed. One of the coolest things about the barrel roll is that when properly executed, you feel no negative Gs even when you're inverted. You are firmly planted in the seat at all times.

The wingover is just a quick way to change directions without losing airspeed. Imagine one of those hotwheels race tracks that you had when you were a kid. A wingover is what would happen if you place a U shaped section of track up against the wall with regular sections leading into and out of it. You pull up and roll at a smooth, constant rate, until your wings are perpendicular to the ground and your nose is pointed 90 degrees from your original heading. Allow the nose to fall a bit and reverse the roll and pitch inputs so that you smoothly level the wings and pull the nose up to arrive back on your same altitude and airspeed headed the opposite way.

The loop is a lot of fun because you get to really put some Gs on the plane. You enter a loop at 200 knots (230 mph) and pull the nose up hard. You achieve 3 and a half times the force of gravity in about two seconds. Just to test what would happen, I didn't do the anti G straining maneuver (AGSM) when my instructor demonstrated the first loop and I started to gray out.

Graying out is the first stage of G induced loss of consciousness (G-LOC). Blood is being pushed to your feet and without this blood your eyes can no longer see color. Pretty soon, like in a matter of seconds, your vision will close in to a very narrow circle and if you continue to pull Gs without doing the AGSM you will black out. You are conscious, you can hear and talk, but you can not see. In a few more seconds you will completely lose consciousness.

Being unconscious when you are not flying level is a bad thing; it usually leads to a collision with the ground. So to prevent this, we do the AGSM. The first part is tensing all of your muscles from your feet to your abdomen. At 3.5 Gs, this is usually enough. If you were going to pull any more Gs, you would start the "hook" breathing technique. You sharply draw in a breath by sucking in as you make the "hoo" sound. You hold your breath for three to five seconds then exhale sharply, making the "k" sound. You repeat this until you are no longer pulling Gs. If executed properly, you should be able to safely pull as many as 9 Gs for a short period of time.

In all honesty, pulling Gs hurts. Your entire body is crushed into the seat and just holding your head up becomes a chore. Three and a half isn't too bad, there's a little pain and you have to work to hold your head up, but it's not superhuman by any means. Nine Gs is really going to hurt.

So the loop is just like it sounds, a big loop in the sky. You pull the nose up so the G meter reads 3.5 and you keep the wings level with the attitude gyro until the nose gets so far up that it no longer provides a reading and flips over. Tilt your head back and locate the horizon behind you. Now you are using that to level your wings. At the top of the loop things become kinda peaceful as the Gs fade and your airspeed bleeds off. You continue to pull and the aircraft starts down the other side of the loop. Now you are nose down and screaming back towards the earth (or, in our case, the Gulf of Mexico). Start the AGSM again and pull to 3.5 Gs until you are level and on your previous altitude.

My first loop was kinda ugly, I let the Gs fade early and had to start my pull again, which actually bleeds off a lot more energy than if you just keep the pull in constant. So at the top of the loop I had bled off too much energy and the plane started to stall. Fortunately I was just a little bit slow, because if you get too slow at the top of a loop, the plane will depart controlled flight and start to fall back to earth any way it damn well pleases. It's recoverable, but it'll get your heart beating pretty hard.

The loop I did on Tuesday, on my second PA flight, was a whole lot better. It was actually a perfect loop. I know this because as I leveled off I hit a pocket of air that caused the plane to buffet slightly. My instructor asked me if I felt it and I said yes but I didn't know what it was. He explained that I had flown right through the disturbance that I had created in the air as I pulled up into the loop. Pretty damn sweet.

Everything was a lot better on my second flight. My barrel rolls were great, wingovers were good, loops were perfect, and I did the split-s, immelman, and half cuban eight. I won't bore you with the details of those maneuvers, they are a lot cooler to do than to hear explained. I was really having a good time, and I think the Navy found out about it.

I got a call Tuesday night that I was headed to IGS (Instrument Ground School) on Friday. I thought it must certainly be a mistake, I was supposed to complete PAs (seven flights) and Formation flight (nine flights) before doing IGS. IGS is the precursor to the Radio Instruments phase of flight school. But I went in on Wednesday and found out it was true. Fuck.

To make matters worse, there are three solo PA flights and I was scheduled to fly my first PA solo on Wednesday. I briefed it, was ready to go, all I needed was for aircraft issue to assign me a plane. Then the fucking clouds moved in. There was a scattered layer at 8,000' and the haze was obscuring the horizon. We start most of our PA maneuvers at about 7500 and top out at 9000', so the ODO cancelled my flight. I was within half an hour of taking that plane out on my own and really getting to whip it around.

So now, instead of pulling Gs and watching the horizon do flips, I have to do two weeks of classroom crap followed by nineteen simulator events and ten flights in the back seat with a bag over my cockpit staring at instruments. Pretty much the most boring type of flying possible. I guess it's cool and all that I'll be an instrument certified pilot and able to fly through clouds, but it is boring flying.

I'll get to go back and do PAs, but it won't be for about six weeks. The only plus side is that I'll get to do my cross country flight sooner so I'll likely be flying to Charlotte sometime in late July. For now, I'm pretty pissed.

Well after not having anything to say or do, I have had one hell of a week. Four days and five flights later, I have soloed!

The weather cleared up this week and we have had clear skies and 90 degree temperatures all week. This meant a busy week for us. Almost every day the working areas were filled and the landing patterns were crowded. It would be a lot better if the areas were empty and you could just concentrate on what you need to do, but that's not feasible and not really realistic anyway. The airspace was crowded as hell on my solo too, so it was good training.

After flying three days in a row I was really flying well. My emergency landing pattern was good and my landings were getting pretty good. This is a good thing because before they let you solo you have to do a check ride with another instructor. It's also called a safe for solo flight because their job is to test you and see if you are indeed safe to go solo.

I flew my check ride with Lt. Mauldin, a pretty laid back Navy instructor. I have flown with him twice before, once in basic instruments and once in contact phase. The first part of the flight is the brief, where they grill you about the aircraft's systems, emergency procedures, limitations, course rules, etc. Mauldin had me draw out the entire fuel system with tanks, pumps, lines, drains, sensors, check valves, yada yada yada. This is not unusual and we study for it. We have to be prepared to draw the entire fuel, oil, and propeller systems and explain them.

So I drew the fuel system up on the board and we talked about it ad nauseum. An excerpt:

Lt. Mauldin: So how many fuel nozzles are there in the system?
Me: 10 primary and 4 secondary sir.
Lt. Mauldin: So why is that?
Me: Well on start-up, fuel is only flowing from 10 nozzles; the last four come on line around 40% N1
Lt. Mauldin: And why is the system designed that way?
Me: In order to facilitate easier light off and prevent hot starts.
Lt. Mauldin: Ok, so what is the indication of a hot start?
Me: ITT rapidly rising above 925 degrees sir.
Lt Mauldin: Ok, you've got a hot start. Emergency procedure, Go!

You get the picture. We're expected to know the T-34C inside and out. I remember being overwhelmed when I got here and they issued me my mountain of books. I thought there was no way in hell I would ever learn all this stuff. But now I can talk your ear off about that stupid airplane. Anything you want to know, I can tell you. Stuff you don't even care about, I can tell you. Stuff you didn't know existed, I can tell you about.

So for the most part the brief went well. He stumped me with a question about the inverter system that I knew I didn't know. I gambled that he wouldn't ask it and he caught me. Not a huge deal, I knew the emergency procedure, I just couldn't explain why we do what we do. Other than that one little snag I knew what I was doing so we headed out to the plane.

On the aircraft we have several weight-on-wheels switches. Their purpose is to disable or enable systems on the ground when there is weight on the wheels. An instructor once joked that his student had a weight-on-ass switch that disabled his brain when he sat in the cockpit. Another person said that your IQ will drop fifty points as soon as the engine starts and they are both right. Flying a plane is not like driving a car; once things are in motion they don't stop. You can't pull over to the side of the road in the air.

So when you take the usual stress of flying and add the additional stress of a check ride you start making mistakes. Failure means a bad mark on your training record and one more chance before you go before the board to possibly be attrited. Also, this second chance will be with the squadron CO or XO. And everybody talks; the entire squadron will likely know you failed your check ride in the time it takes you to walk from the plane back to the hangar.

I made a bunch of small mental errors, things that I have done right every other flight and screwed up this time. For the most part, they were small errors and I corrected them before Lt. Mauldin corrected me, but it was a little frustrating. I know what to do, I know how to do it right, but for some reason I screw things up.

Case in point; a high altitude power loss (HAPL). You are flying along, fat, dumb and happy and your engine craps out. What do you do now? Speed, clean, check, feather, look, lock. Airstart, bailout, emergency engine shutdown, maday/7700 call, intercept the ELP, gear and flaps, canopy emergency open, battery off. I know what all those steps mean; I can talk your ear off about all the things that could go wrong in those procedures and what to do if they do. But for some reason, when I had to do the procedure yesterday I started my emergency landing pattern in the wrong direction and dropped my gear for an emergency landing onto the mud flats (gear should be up, flaps should come down.)

Almost all of my mistakes I realized before he had a chance to correct me, which I guess showed him that I really do know what I am doing and he passed me. He had a couple laughs at my expense in flight and in the debrief, but that was more reassuring than anything. So I was cleared to solo. I only had an hour break before I briefed with the Operations Duty Officer for my solo flight.

I was honestly a little nervous before taking off. This is not a twenty five year old, $50,000 Cessna 172. This is a $1,000,000 Navy asset. If you twist up a Cessna, no big deal, it's maybe a local news story. You bust up a Navy plane and you're going to have your picture in USA Today. I am never nervous flying the plane from takeoff all the way to the turn to touchdown. Touchdown is another story. There are so many things that can go wrong and you don't have much time to fix it. The reality is that I'm well trained, I know what to do, and I am well within the safe limits of the aircraft, but it just doesn't feel natural to fly this thing at the ground at 100 knots (115 miles per hour).

So I briefed with the ODO and headed out to the flight line. I ran into a buddy from TBS who is in VT-27 on my way out and we chatted briefly. Ironically, he had failed his check ride the day before. I felt kinda bad when he asked me what I was flying that day, but I'm sure he'll pass the next ride. It was weird walking out there all alone. The CO told us in our in brief that it would be a strange feeling when we walked out there for the first time alone and he was right. I had this feeling like I was sneaking a cookie out of the cookie jar. Not really doing something bad, just taking something on the sly. After being under the microscope for so long, it is strange when they finally just cut the cord and send you on your way.

Startup and run up went well but there was something strange. I didn't hear any radio traffic with the ground frequency dialed in on the UHF radio. There were planes taxiing down the taxiways, so I knew that there were people talking on the frequency but I still heard nothing. These planes are not new, most are twenty plus years old, things crap out all the time. But I was not ready to give up on this flight because if I gave up this plane I might not get another one and have to go solo the next day.

Fortunately for me, when I pressed the transmit switch on the throttle lever with my left thumb to make my call to ground control, the radio sprang to life. All of the sudden my helmet was filled with radio calls. I have no idea why this happened, but the radio worked fine the rest of the flight. If my radio had crapped out in flight there is still the VHF radio and there are emergency procedures for lost communication.

So I proceeded to the run up area, did my preflight checks, and checked in with the Runway Duty Officer. There was another solo departing at the same time and we only had one runway available to land and depart on so I was told to head out to the working areas then come back for my required five touch and go landings. Takeoff and departure was uneventful and I headed up to the north. It's a forty mile trip to the northern training areas, but at almost 200 miles per hour that only takes a little more than ten minutes.

So there I was, alone and unafraid at 8,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico. What now? The list of maneuvers we are actually allowed to do is very short. Mostly I was just eating up time and waiting to head back for my touch and goes. I did a couple quick turns back and forth at 60 degrees angle of bank, did some high G climbs and some negative G pushovers (don't know if I was really supposed to do those, but oh well) but it got kinda old after a while. The one thing I did enjoy doing was flying really really sloppy. I didn't really give a crap if I gained or lost 150' on my turn, I've got 8000 more where those came from. If I wasn't so tired I might have taken the time to really do some nice level turns and maybe some level speed changes but I was so I didn't.

Eventually time was up and it was time to head back home. I headed inbound for the break and I could already tell that it was going to take a while to get in my necessary five touch and go landings. When the airfield is really busy you can't just fly your normal landing pattern which takes about two minutes. You might get extended off of the upwind, which extends your downwind leg, or you might get waved off because someone is still on the runway, which means that three minute pattern you just flew was for nothing. It seems silly to bitch about it, but I was in the last half hour of three and a half hours of flight time that day in a cramped, hot cockpit, loaded down with gear and under a lot of stress for the first two hour flight. By the time I finally landed I was just happy it was over with.

I walked back from the flight line feeling good. My ass hurt, I was exhausted, I was hungry, but it felt really good to have such a huge hurdle behind me. Next stage: Precision Aerobatics! Now I get to flip this plane over and pull some serious Gs. But for today I have the day off. Thank god, I am not ready to start another block of flight today.

Well after a many month hiatus from hashing, I finally tracked down the Corpus hash. They only hash every other Saturday (the other Saturday is for a bike hash) and the website wasn't updated for over a month. So I was really looking forward to some hashing in Texas. I convinced a buddy of mine to come and check it out; he had heard about hashing from friends before but had never gone.

The website said only that the hash would meet at 5pm at the main entrance to the Shrimporee in Aransas Pass (north of Corpus Christi across the bay). Sam and I showed up at about 4:55 and started looking around. I wasn't sure if CCH3 (Corpus Christi Hash House Harriers) was like Sir Walter's and people mosied in about twenty to thirty minutes late or if it was like Over the Hump in DC and they packed off promptly at the stated time. We didn't see anyone when we drove in and we decided to take a walk around the parade grounds to look for hashers.

Finally after walking all the way around the parade ground, I spotted a woman wearing hash tags around her neck and a hash foot on her t-shirt. I asked is she was here for the hash (yeah, that'll get you some funny looks) and she answered in the affirmative. She told me that CCH3 is notorious for showing up late and that they were pretty lame sometimes. I wasn't encouraged, but she was reasonably cute so I hung around.

It took a freaking hour for everybody to show up and the damn hares were the last to show. Sam was getting frustrated waiting for everybody and I was starting to agree with him. Worst of all, it seems that this was to be a social hash; most of the crowd showed up wearing street clothes. When a couple showed up with a stroller (not a jogger, a stroller like you take for a walk down the street) containing a newborn, I knew it wasn't going to be a good hash.

Finally the hares split and after about fifteen minutes we gave chase. But because it was a live trail, we started off walking (live trails start with five minutes of walking). We never needed to break out in a run. We walked for about two hundred yards down the road, around the block, and we were at the on-in. Holy shit I was pissed. I drove all the way out there and told Sam about how great hashing was and this is all I get?

The circle was ok, they gave me and my virgin (Sam) a down down for not knowing who "G" was, (the founder of hashing Sir Albert S. Gispert) which I thought was pretty damn lame. A hashing quiz? Who's ever heard of something so ridiculous? The hash songs were pretty good. I know quite a few, but they had some new ones. My favorite was "It's incest time in Texas" to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas. I suffered a few down-downs and had a good time, so it was worth my $5. I seem to have caught the eye of a certain harriette, which was a good thing too.

Not much to talk about this time, we haven't done much flying lately. I have done even less flying than everyone else, it seems, due to a couple of shitty schedules. Because of all this I haven't flown since last Wednesday. I am on the schedule to fly Monday at 1230. I'm starting to get pissed. I came here to fly planes, not sit on my ass and do nothing.

The last time I flew was last wednesday. I didn't get to fly on Thursday due to a saftey stand down and I just wasn't scheduled on Friday. This entire week has been lost to bad weather; we have had low clouds and thunderstorms all week. There was an especially good one this Thursday morning. On a side note, I've been a little dissapointed with the thunderstorms here in Texas. They are all pretty lame; the are short and never build up to a really good storm. North Carolina storms were much better.

So I do my best to stay busy and keep myself entertained but there isn't much to do here. I don't have a whole lot to study for anymore since I'm almost done with this block of flight. Just a few more flights and I'll solo. A few of my classmates have soloed already and I could have likely soloed myself if it wasn't for my onwing being unavailable so much and the weather crapping on me.

This weekend looks a little more promising. The Corpus Christi minor league baseball team is back in town, there are two arts/music festivals, and the Corpus Christi Hash House Harriers are running on Saturday. Hopefully they'll be a cool group. I haven't yet found a hash group as cool as Sir Walter's. If anyone is still reading, miss you guys!

Two buddies and I went to Austin, TX last weekend and we had a pretty good time. We rented a hotel room at the Hilton two blocks from 6th street, which is like their Franklin street. Sixth street is packed with bars for three to four blocks and for the most part they don't have a cover and they have drink specials even on a Friday night. We started a little early and the bars were mostly empty. As we were walking down the street a bachelorette party ran into a bar with no cover so we figured why not?

The bachelorette party had a perimeter more impenetrable than Fort Knox, so we decided to buy some beers and relax for a bit while the bar scene heated up. Carmean decided to chat up the beer girl and Fong and I sat down at the bar. After a few minutes two shot girls came up and offered us $1 shots. I didn't want to start with shots so early so I said no. Apparently these two particular shot girls were not used to people saying no to them because they just wouldn't take no for an answer. So we decided to have some fun with them. We posed the question "what are you willing to do to convince us to buy these shots?"

After a bunch of eye batting and even some cleavage manipulation Fong bought two shots from each of them. One of them went away but the second one, Ryanne, stayed and talked to us for a little while. I was still pretty sceptical but Fong was happy to talk to her. Then she said the strangest thing. I was barely in the conversation when she turned to me and said "I feel like I've known you forever, where do I know you from?" She's from California and did a few years in the Army so we established that we hadn't crossed paths before.

She gave me her name and told me to look her up on MySpace. That seems to be the new way that people meet, even when they meet face to face. Carmean got the MySpace invite from the beer girl as well. After spending the better part of two hours talking to her, when he did look her up on MySpace it turns out she's a lesbian with a girlfriend. Oh well, it looked like he was having fun at the time.

The rest of the bars were fun, I think we hit seven or eight of them. Lots of beautiful women, lots of cheap booze, and some decent music here and there. Nobody wound up taking any girls home, which is probably good. That may habe been awkward for the other two other guys in the hotel room.